What about Jonah

[LittleLambofJesus]

I have always liked Jonah and especially since Jesus mentions him the NT.
It only has 4 chapters and it seems like he goes thru trials, much like Job and Paul did. [I can almost view it as a condensed version of Job.]
Jonah has only 48 verses in 4 chapters, [2nd only to Obadiah which has 21 verse in 1 chapter]
Old Testament Statistics: Number of Chapters and Verses in the Old Testament

There are a few similarities between Jonah, Jesus and Paul and that will be the main basis of this thread.

First let me quote some of the passages:

Jonah 1:
1 Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me

Jonah 2:10
10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land

Jonah 3:
1 Then the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message that I will give you.”

5 And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.
6 When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

The Ninevites are mentioned 2 times in the NT, Matt and Luke, concerning the repenting of the City of Nineveh

Matt 12:41
`Men Ninevites shall be resurrecting/anasthsontai <450> (5698) in the judging with this generation, and they shall be condemning it
that they repent into the proclamation of Jonah and behold! more of Jonah here. [Luke 11:32]

Notice the similarity with Paul when the Lord chose him to go to the gentiles:

Jonah 1:
1 Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,
2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me

Acts 9
15 “Go!” said the Lord. “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel.
16 I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

 

[brinny]

I have always liked Jonah and especially since Jesus mentions him the NT.
It only has 4 chapters and it seems like he goes thru trials, much like Job and Paul did.
There are so many similarities between him, Jesus and Paul and that will be the main basis of this thread.

First let me quote some of the passages:

Jonah 1:
1 Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me

Jonah 2:10
10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land

Jonah 3:
1 Then the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message that I will give you.”

5 And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.
6 When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

The Ninevites are mentioned 2 times in the NT, Matt and Luke, concerning the repenting of the City of Nineveh

Matt 12:41
`Men Ninevites shall be resurrecting/anasthsontai <450> (5698) in the judging with this generation, and they shall be condemning it
that they repent into the proclamation of Jonah and behold! more of Jonah here. [Luke 11:32]

Notice the similarity with Paul when the Lord chose him to go to the gentiles:

Jonah 1:
1 Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,
2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me

Acts 9
15 “Go!” said the Lord. “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel.
16 I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

it seems like he goes thru trials, much like Job and Paul did.

Well ok, Jonah goes through trials, but kinda' like self-imposed ones hahahahaaa

Now i can empathize with Jonah because c'mon these people in Ninevah were, from my understanding, abominably horrible, and he didn't wanna go anywhere NEAR them LOL!

Those who criticize him just need to be honest and put themselves in his shoes.......wouldn't they try to run too?

haven't we ever done that? Run from something God wanted us to do?

Well that's what Jonah did, as fast as he could...

it was HARD being a prophet back then.

I think he learned his lesson from the whale-ride.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Well ok, Jonah goes through trials, but kinda' like self-imposed ones hahahahaaa

Now i can empathize with Jonah because c'mon these people in Ninevah were, from my understanding, abominably horrible, and he didn't wanna go anywhere NEAR them LOL!

Those who criticize him just need to be honest and put themselves in his shoes.......wouldn't they try to run too?

haven't we ever done that? Run from something God wanted us to do?

Well that's what Jonah did, as fast as he could...

it was HARD being a prophet back then.

I think he learned his lesson from the whale-ride.

Hi brinny.
Yeah, I always get a little giggle about him trying to run and hide from the LORD ehehe.
At least Jonah got to take a cruise on a boat even if he did get swallowed up by a whale/great fish, then vomited up eheheh

Whereas pool ole Job shaved his head, fell to the ground, and got tormented by Satan, then grilled by 3 yokels...I think Job got the proverbial short end of the stick compared to Jonah.

Job 1
20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, 21 saying:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
22 In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.

Job 2:
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

11 Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, each of them came from his home and met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him

 

[JackRT]

Some Bible scholars regard Jonah as a parable written large. Here is one understanding:

It was a profound shock to the people of Judah when the City of Jerusalem fell to the army of the Babylonians in the early years of the 6th century BCE. This city had not been conquered by an invading power since 1000 BCE, when David himself had taken it from the Jebusites to make it the capital of his newly unified country. When Solomon erected the Temple in Jerusalem, the people began to think that this holy city now lived under the protection of its indwelling deity. That idea was shattered with the city's fall in 596. The subsequent relocation of the Jewish people into a Babylonian exile only continued the shock and increased the despair.

The depth and pain of these reactions was located in the firm belief that somehow the Jews were God's chosen and favored people. Yet the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people seemed a strange way for the "chosen people" to be treated by their God. Life has to be endured as it comes, however, and so the Jews lived apart from their holy city and their sacred soil for several generations. Finally, the Persians defeated the Babylonians and allowed the descendants of the exiled Jews to return and resettle their native land. Jewish pilgrims returned in smaller and larger groups over the next two centuries.

The Jews dealt with this trauma in their history by trying to explain why God had allowed the defeat and exile of the chosen people. All of their understanding of God drove them to find some rationality in this experience. This was especially true when a sufficient number had returned to allow them finally to begin to rebuild their country. They wanted to make sure that God's wrath would not descend on them again. They needed to know how they had offended God so that this behavior would never be repeated. Their first explanation was emotionally unsatisfying for it placed blame for unfaithfulness on their own ancestors and dishonored their parents, in direct violation of the Ten Commandments. Then they hit on what seemed a better idea. Alien influences were to blame, they said, "Some of our weaker ancestors had married foreign partners. These Gentile elements then brought corruption to our nation by polluting the true faith and the racial purity of God's people." The way to avoid a future disaster thus seemed clear. They must purge the nation of its non-Jewish elements by banishing them from the land. The half-breed children of these unholy unions must also go. The new land of the Jews must be for Jews only. So the law was decreed and vigilante squads were loosed on the people with instructions to check blood lines to the tenth generation in order to guarantee the racial purity of the newly established Jewish state. The true worship of a pure Jewish people was the only way to secure God's blessing. The Jewish state thus entered a period of internal violence.

It was because of the atmosphere produced by this mentality that an unknown Jewish person, presumably a man since women were not taught to write at this time, went to his home to devise a means of challenging these prevailing attitudes. He could not attack them openly in a public, political way, for that would be interpreted as running the risk of new defeat and a new exile. He had to confront these attitudes obliquely until their destructiveness was made clear. He had to find a way to hold up a mirror and to force the ruling authorities to look directly into it. Taking his quill in hand he decided to write a fanciful story filled with the exaggeration of a world of make believe, but so enchanting that everyone would want to hear it. In the privacy of his home, he did just that. When he had finished, a text of this story appeared suddenly and anonymously in Jerusalem at the height of the ethnic cleansing. The town crier gathered some people around him in a public square and this is the story he read.

Once upon a time there was a prophet in Israel whose name was Jonah. God called to Jonah and told him that he must go to preach to the people of Nineveh. "Nineveh," said Jonah, "you must be kidding. That is an unclean Gentile city. Why would you want me to do something that weird?" God was adamant, however, and God's message was clear, so Jonah had to respond. He did so in the classic way that people do when they are told by an authority figure to do something they really do not want to do, that is, Jonah said "Yes" but he meant "No" since he had no intention of obeying. Jonah, however, went through all the motions. He went to his home, packed a suitcase, went down to the port and booked passage on a boat, but to Tarshish and not to Nineveh. One does not go by sea to Nineveh. If caught, he reasoned, he could claim that he had misunderstood and by this time, God surely would have had second thoughts. All went well as Jonah boarded, unpacked his suitcase in his stateroom, put on his Bermuda shorts, got a good book and positioned himself topside in a deck chair as the ship pulled out into the Mediterranean Sea. The trip was uneventful until a dark cloud in the sky seemed to be shadowing the boat. Aware of this dark presence, the captain tried to escape it by turning the boat both to the right and to the left, but the cloud responded by turning in concert with the boat. While the rest of the sky was clear and blue, this cloud got darker and darker and from within it came flashes of lightning, the roar of thunder and finally rain. So strange was this phenomenon that the captain drew the obvious conclusion, "Someone up there does not like someone down here." In what he regarded as a scientific fashion, he sought to identify the culprit. He drew straws and the lot fell on Jonah. "What is this that you have done, Jonah?" "Well, God did tell me to go preach to the Ninevites, but I knew that God did not really care for the Ninevites, so I booked passage on this boat." The captain, who did not care for Ninevites either, understood and thought he would ride out the storm until a bolt of lightning struck near and a wave from the sea swept over the boat, hurling Jonah's deck chair from one end of the ship to the other. That was when the captain weighed his own security against Jonah's decision and decided that Jonah had to go. So, with the help of three deck hands, Jonah was seized by his limbs and on the count of three they heaved him overboard.

Jonah never hit the sea. God had created a great fish (the word whale never occurs in this story) that had been swimming in tandem with this boat waiting for its moment in the drama. Jonah fell into its open jaws, which closed over him, and Jonah found himself living in the belly of this great fish. Jonah had amazing adaptive qualities, so he settled down to make his new home comfortable by rearranging the furniture and hanging the curtains. For three days and nights, Jonah lived in this new, but somewhat confining, Mediterranean condominium until even the great fish got tired of Jonah (I think he smoked) and so, with a great primeval belch, the fish threw up Jonah, who tumbled head over heels onto a conveniently located sandbar. Jonah was clearing his head and taking in his new situation, when he heard a voice saying, "Jonah how would you like to preach to the people of Nineveh?" "Okay, God," he said, "You win. I'll go."

In one verse Jonah was in Nineveh, but still convinced that God was making a mistake, so he opted for a new form of resistance. In Frank Sinatra fashion, he concluded, "I'll do it, but I'll do it my way! I'll preach to the Ninevites, but I'll do it by muttering under my breath and only on the back streets and alley ways of the city." Around the city he went saying: "God says to repent. Repent and turn to God," hoping no one would hear. To his amazement everyone heard. Crowds gathered from every house and condominium confessing their sins, tearing their clothes in repentance and begging for God's mercy. Jonah was the most successful evangelist in the history of the world. Jerry Falwell would have eaten his heart out for this kind of response.

Jonah, however, was angry. Storming out of town, he said: "I knew this would happen, God. That is why I did not want to come. These wretched people deserve punishment. I know you, God! I know you will forgive! Why does your love not stop at the boundary of my love?"

Jonah found a spot outside the city where he sat and sulked. The sounds of the revival could be heard as "Sweet Hour of Prayer" was being sung by the penitents. God was strangely silent and night fell. When Jonah awoke, a giant plant had grown up near his head. During the day Jonah found protection from the desert sun in its foliage and sanctuary from the biting desert wind in its trunk. That night God created a worm that ate the giant tree, leaving only a small pile of sawdust. When Jonah awoke, he was distraught at the loss of his beloved tree. He wept, mourned and felt the depth of bereavement. Finally, God broke the divine silence and said, "Jonah, how is it that you can have such passionate feelings about this tree and yet no compassion for the 120,000 people of Nineveh, to say nothing of their cattle?"

The Book of Jonah ends there. Imagine that story being read on the streets of Jerusalem while ethnic cleansing was taking place in the city. As the story unfolded, the people roared at the depth of Jonah's bigotry until they realized that Jonah was a fictional portrayal of themselves.

The Book of Jonah remains in the Bible to this day to counter human attempts to say that the love of God is limited to the limits of my love or my religion's ability to love. There are no boundaries on the love of God. That is the message of Jonah. In God there are no distinctions between Jew and Gentile, male and female, black and white, gay and straight, left handed and right handed. God's invitation is "Come unto me, all ye" not "some of ye." We are to come "just as we are, without one plea." How dare Popes or Archbishops of Canterbury or religious institutions anywhere define anyone as beyond the limits of God's embracing love! When any ecclesiastical leader or religious tradition excludes or diminishes any child of God for the sake of "unity" or by defining God's love as limited, the Book of Jonah stands as biblical judgment on that leader and those attitudes.

~~~ John Shelby Spong

 

[brinny]

Hi brinny.
Yeah, I always get a little giggle about him trying to run and hide from the LORD ehehe.
At least Jonah got to take a cruise on a boat even if he did get swallowed up by a whale then vomited up eheheh

Whereas pool ole Job shaved his head, fell to the ground, and got tormented by Satan, then by 3 yokels...I think Job got the proverbial short end of the stick compared to Jonah.

Job 1
20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, 21 saying:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
22 In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.

Job 2:
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

11 Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, each of them came from his home and met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him

Ugh, yes...i don't know how Job withstood it all. At his most excruciating time ever, his WIFE comes and she might as well have kicked him in the teeth.

All of this snuck up on Job unawares. One minute he's worshiping God and praying for all of his children, and the next, whooooosh!!!! All hades breaks loose.

Whereas Jonah KNEW why God was after him. He must've been in panic mode to think that God couldn't find him LOL!

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Jonah 1:
1 Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me

3 Jonah, however, got up and fled to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard to sail for Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.
4 Then the LORD hurled a violent wind upon the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship was in danger of breaking apart

5The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. [Matt 8:23]
6 The captain approached him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps this God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”

Now look at the similarity of Matt 8 and Acts 27 what both Jesus and Paul went thru concerning being on a ship and a tempest showing up.
Both .

Matt 8:23
And when he entered into the boat his disciples did follow him, 24 and Behold!, a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves, but He was sleeping,
25 and his disciples having come to him, awoke Him, saying, `Sir, save us; we are perishing.' 26 And he saith to them, `Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' Then having risen, he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm; [Jonah 1: 5,6

Paul says he is a Jew of "Tarsus", which eerily resembles the word "Tarshsish" in the book of Jonah.
Will have to look at this more....

Jonah 1:
3 Jonah, however, got up and fled to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish.

Acts 21:39
But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.

Acts 27:
16 Passing to the lee of a small island called Cauda,b we barely managed to secure the lifeboat. 17 After hoisting it up, the crew used ropes to undergird the ship.
Fearing they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchorc and were driven along.

18 We were tossed so violently that the next day the men began to jettison the cargo. 19 On the third day, they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. 20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the great storm continued to batter us, we abandoned all hope of being saved.
24 and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And look, God has granted you the lives of all who sail with you.’
30 Meanwhile, the sailors attempted to escape from the ship. Pretending to lower anchors from the bow, they let the lifeboat down into the sea. 31 But Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men remain with the ship, you cannot be saved.” 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes to the lifeboat and set it adrift.



5018. Tarseus tar-syoos' from 5019; a Tarsean, i.e. native of Tarsus:--of Tarsus

 

[hedrick]

Some Bible scholars regard Jonah as a parable written large.

I would go further and say it's a satirical comment on the narrowness of some Israel thought. E.g. Ezra and Nehemiah.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Some Bible scholars regard Jonah as a parable written large. Here is one understanding:

Once upon a time there was a prophet in Israel whose name was Jonah. God called to Jonah and told him that he must go to preach to the people of Nineveh. "Nineveh," said Jonah, "you must be kidding. That is an unclean Gentile city. Why would you want me to do something that weird?" God was adamant, however, and God's message was clear, so Jonah had to respond. He did so in the classic way that people do when they are told by an authority figure to do something they really do not want to do, that is, Jonah said "Yes" but he meant "No" since he had no intention of obeying. Jonah, however, went through all the motions. He went to his home, packed a suitcase, went down to the port and booked passage on a boat, but to Tarshish and not to Nineveh. One does not go by sea to Nineveh. If caught, he reasoned, he could claim that he had misunderstood and by this time, God surely would have had second thoughts. All went well as Jonah boarded, unpacked his suitcase in his stateroom, put on his Bermuda shorts, got a good book and positioned himself topside in a deck chair as the ship pulled out into the Mediterranean Sea. The trip was uneventful until a dark cloud in the sky seemed to be shadowing the boat. Aware of this dark presence, the captain tried to escape it by turning the boat both to the right and to the left, but the cloud responded by turning in concert with the boat. While the rest of the sky was clear and blue, this cloud got darker and darker and from within it came flashes of lightning, the roar of thunder and finally rain. So strange was this phenomenon that the captain drew the obvious conclusion, "Someone up there does not like someone down here." In what he regarded as a scientific fashion, he sought to identify the culprit. He drew straws and the lot fell on Jonah. "What is this that you have done, Jonah?" "Well, God did tell me to go preach to the Ninevites, but I knew that God did not really care for the Ninevites, so I booked passage on this boat." The captain, who did not care for Ninevites either, understood and thought he would ride out the storm until a bolt of lightning struck near and a wave from the sea swept over the boat, hurling Jonah's deck chair from one end of the ship to the other. That was when the captain weighed his own security against Jonah's decision and decided that Jonah had to go. So, with the help of three deck hands, Jonah was seized by his limbs and on the count of three they heaved him overboard.

Jonah never hit the sea. God had created a great fish (the word whale never occurs in this story) that had been swimming in tandem with this boat waiting for its moment in the drama. Jonah fell into its open jaws, which closed over him, and Jonah found himself living in the belly of this great fish. Jonah had amazing adaptive qualities, so he settled down to make his new home comfortable by rearranging the furniture and hanging the curtains. For three days and nights, Jonah lived in this new, but somewhat confining, Mediterranean condominium until even the great fish got tired of Jonah (I think he smoked) and so, with a great primeval belch, the fish threw up Jonah, who tumbled head over heels onto a conveniently located sandbar. Jonah was clearing his head and taking in his new situation, when he heard a voice saying, "Jonah how would you like to preach to the people of Nineveh?" "Okay, God," he said, "You win. I'll go."

In one verse Jonah was in Nineveh, but still convinced that God was making a mistake, so he opted for a new form of resistance. In Frank Sinatra fashion, he concluded, "I'll do it, but I'll do it my way! I'll preach to the Ninevites, but I'll do it by muttering under my breath and only on the back streets and alley ways of the city." Around the city he went saying: "God says to repent. Repent and turn to God," hoping no one would hear. To his amazement everyone heard. Crowds gathered from every house and condominium confessing their sins, tearing their clothes in repentance and begging for God's mercy. Jonah was the most successful evangelist in the history of the world. Jerry Falwell would have eaten his heart out for this kind of response.

Jonah, however, was angry. Storming out of town, he said: "I knew this would happen, God. That is why I did not want to come. These wretched people deserve punishment. I know you, God! I know you will forgive! Why does your love not stop at the boundary of my love?"

Jonah found a spot outside the city where he sat and sulked. The sounds of the revival could be heard as "Sweet Hour of Prayer" was being sung by the penitents. God was strangely silent and night fell. When Jonah awoke, a giant plant had grown up near his head. During the day Jonah found protection from the desert sun in its foliage and sanctuary from the biting desert wind in its trunk. That night God created a worm that ate the giant tree, leaving only a small pile of sawdust. When Jonah awoke, he was distraught at the loss of his beloved tree. He wept, mourned and felt the depth of bereavement. Finally, God broke the divine silence and said, "Jonah, how is it that you can have such passionate feelings about this tree and yet no compassion for the 120,000 people of Nineveh, to say nothing of their cattle?"

The Book of Jonah ends there. Imagine that story being read on the streets of Jerusalem while ethnic cleansing was taking place in the city. As the story unfolded, the people roared at the depth of Jonah's bigotry until they realized that Jonah was a fictional portrayal of themselves.

The Book of Jonah remains in the Bible to this day to counter human attempts to say that the love of God is limited to the limits of my love or my religion's ability to love. There are no boundaries on the love of God. That is the message of Jonah. In God there are no distinctions between Jew and Gentile, male and female, black and white, gay and straight, left handed and right handed. God's invitation is "Come unto me, all ye" not "some of ye." We are to come "just as we are, without one plea." How dare Popes or Archbishops of Canterbury or religious institutions anywhere define anyone as beyond the limits of God's embracing love! When any ecclesiastical leader or religious tradition excludes or diminishes any child of God for the sake of "unity" or by defining God's love as limited, the Book of Jonah stands as biblical judgment on that leader and those attitudes.

~~~ John Shelby Spong

That was really a good read, and thanks for posting it.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

continued:

In vs 12 Jonah tells them to cast him in to sea.
In vs 14 the men on the ship tried to avoid throwing Jonahoverboard, whom they saw as an innocent man, for fear of punishment from Yahweh, so they prayed to Yahweh not to let them perish for what they were doing.

Rotherham) Jonah 1:
11 Now the sea was growing worse and worse, so they said to Jonah, “What must we do to you to calm this sea for us?”
12 “Pick me up,” he answered, “and cast me into the sea, so it may quiet down for you.
For I know that I am to blame for this violent storm that has come upon you.”
14 Then cried they unto Yahweh and said, "Ah now Yahweh, pray let it not be that we perish for this man's life, neither lay upon us innocent blood,--for Thou, O Yahweh, as thou hast pleased hast ever done.l
[John 11:50/Matt 27:24/John 19:38]

That reminds me of John 11:50, when the high priest Caiaphas made this announcement at a council of Chief Priests and Pharisees who felt threatened by Jesus and His new "Way" of spirit and truth:

John 11:
48 If-ever we may be be letting Him thus, all shall be believing in Him.
And shall be coming the Romans and they shall be taking away of Us and the Place and the Nation" [Luke 21:24/Reve 13:10]
49 And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all,
50 "nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish."

Just as the people on the boat with Jonah did not want to shed innocent blood, Pilate pretty much exclaimed the same thing at the trial of Jesus.
Jesus exclaimed to Pilate that He would not blame the Romans but the one delivering Him up.

John 19:
11 Answered the Jesus: "Not thou are having authority against Me, none at all, if no not to thee been given from above. Therefore the one delivering up Me to thee greater sin is having"..............
38 Pilate is saying to Him: "What is Truth"?
And this saying, again He came out to the Judeans and is saying to them: "I not yet am finding fault in Him".

Matt 27:24
When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.”

Paul also said this in Acts 20:26 after he was converted to Jesus, perhaps because of his past persecution of Christians before he was converted?

Acts 20:26
“Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Jonah is only mentioned in Matt and Luke, with Matt 12:40 actually speaking about Jonah being in the belly of the great fish, which is of course is a prophecy of Jesus's impending future resurrection.
The other times it is mentioned as a sign.

Jonah 1:
15 And they lift up Jonah, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceaseth from its raging; 16 and the men fear Jehovah — a great fear, and sacrifice a sacrifice to Jehovah, and vow vows.

17 And Yahweh appointeth a great/1419 fish/1709 to swallow up Jonah,
and Jonah is in the bowels of the fish three days and three nights. [Matt 12:40]

Matt 12:40
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish,
so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matt 16:4
A wicked and adulterous generation demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Then He left them and went away.
Luke 11:30
for as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also shall the Son of Man be to this generation.

Will continue in next post...........

.............

 

[JackRT]

Jonah is only mentioned in Matt and Luke, with Matt 12:40 actually speaking about Jonah being in the belly of the great fish, which is of course is a prophecy of Jesus's impending future resurrection.
The other times it is mentioned as a sign.

Jonah 1:
15 And they lift up Jonah, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceaseth from its raging; 16 and the men fear Jehovah — a great fear, and sacrifice a sacrifice to Jehovah, and vow vows.

17 And Yahweh appointeth a great/1419 fish/1709 to swallow up Jonah,
and Jonah is in the bowels of the fish three days and three nights. [Matt 12:40]

Matt 12:40
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish,
so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matt 16:4
A wicked and adulterous generation demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Then He left them and went away.
Luke 11:30
for as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also shall the Son of Man be to this generation.

Will continue in next post...........

View attachment 230932.............View attachment 230933

So it is a catfish? With eyelashes?

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

So it is a catfish? With eyelashes?

Ya noticed that .........
With God anything is possible....

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

What a powerful prayer which sitting in the belly of a great fish!
He mentions YAHWEH'S great Temple twice........

(Berean Study Bible)

Jonah's Prayer
17 Now the LORD had appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah,
and Jonah spent three days and three nights in the stomach of the fish.
Jonah 2:
1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God, 2 saying:
“In my distress I called to the LORD and He answered me.
From the belly of Sheol I called for help, and You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,
and the current swirled about me.
All Your breakers and waves swept over me.
4 At this, I said ‘I have been banished from Your sight;
yet I will look once more toward Your holy temple.’
5 The waters engulfed me up to the neck;
the watery depths overcame me;
the seaweed wrapped around my head.

6 To the roots of the mountains I descended;
The earth beneath me barred me in forever!
But You raised my life from the pit, O LORD my God!
7 As my life was fading away, I remembered the LORD.
My prayer went up to You, to Your holy temple.
8 Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.
9 But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You.
I will fulfill what I have vowed. Salvation is from the LORD!”

10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

The phrase "holy temple is used only 9 times in the OT.
5 times in Psalms, 2 times in Jonah, and 1 each in Micah and Habkkuk

Genesis 1:1 (YLT)

Psa 5:7
And I, in the abundance of Thy kindness, I enter Thy house, I bow myself toward Thy holy temple in Thy fear
Psa 138:2
I bow myself toward Thy holy temple, And I confess Thy name, For Thy kindness, and for Thy truth, For Thou hast made great Thy saying above all Thy name.

Last times used after Jonah:

Mic 1:2
Hear, O peoples, all of them! Attend, O earth, and its fulness,
And the Lord Jehovah is against you for a witness, The Lord from His holy temple.
Hab 2:20
And Jehovah is in His holy temple, Be silent before Him, all the earth!

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

JackRT said: ↑
Some Bible scholars regard Jonah as a parable written large

I would go further and say it's a satirical comment on the narrowness of some Israel thought. E.g. Ezra and Nehemiah.

There is also this similar event concerning a great temple and Jonah and Jesus are sleeping....

Jonah, Jesus and Paul


Rotherham) Jonah 1:
4 But Yahweh hurled a great wind against the sea,--and there arose a mighty tempest in the sea,--and the ship thought to be broken in pieces, 5 Then were the mariners afraid and made outcry every man unto his own god, and they hurled the wares which were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them,--but,Jonah had gone down into the hinder parts of the vessel, and had lain down and fallen into a sound sleep.

YLT]
Matt 8:23 And when he entered into the boat his disciples did follow him, 24 and lo, a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves, but He was sleeping